Localization of machine-readable indicia in digital capture systems

ABSTRACT

The present disclosures relates to finding or localizing machine readable indicia (e.g., a barcode or digital watermark) in imagery. One claim recites an apparatus comprising: memory for buffering blocks of image data, the image data having been captured with a camera and depicting a printed object; one or more processors programmed for: generating an edge orientation sensitive feature set from the image data; using a first trained classifier to determine whether the feature set includes data representing a barcode; and using N additional trained classifiers to determine an orientation angle associated with the barcode, wherein N comprises an integer greater than 3, and wherein the orientation angle is selected based on a probability metric. Of course, other claims and combinations are provided too.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/059,690, filed Mar. 3, 2016 (now U.S. Pat. No. 9,892,301), which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/128,806, filed Mar. 5, 2015, and which are each hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

This application is related to assignee's U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/332,739, filed Jul. 16, 2014 (published as US 2015-0030201 A1, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,521,291), which claims the benefit of US Provisional Patent Application Nos. 61/856,476, filed Jul. 19, 2013, and 61/918,214, filed Dec. 19, 2013. This application is also related to assignee's U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/616,686, filed Feb. 2, 2015 (published as US 2015-0156369 A1, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,380,186). Each of the above patent documents is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety

TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosure relates to advanced signal processing technology including rapid localization for machine-readable indicia including digital watermarking, and other machine-readable symbologies, such as 1-D and 2-D barcodes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed in color. Copies of this patent or patent application publication with color drawing(s) will be provided by the Office upon request and payment of the necessary fee.

FIG. 1 is a color image captured with a camera, the image including a representation of a 1 dimensional (1D) barcode (UPC).

FIG. 2 shows an example of 1D logistic regressor.

FIG. 3 shows an analyzed image (left) captured with a cell phone camera, and a heat-map representation of such analyzed image using averaged sub-block values V (right).

FIG. 4 shows portions of frames captured by a monochromatic camera.

FIG. 5 shows a visual/graphical example of a watermark detection process, including strong detection areas.

FIG. 6 shows a receiver operating characteristic curve of a proposed detector for blocks with watermarked objects.

FIG. 7A shows a tomato soup can with unreadable watermark, FIG. 7B shows an unmarked air insulated coffee cup causing false alarms, and FIG. 7C shows detail of full resolution background noise.

FIG. 8 shows a captured frame of a watermarked package with probability estimates calculated for each non-overlapping sub-block. The two maximums over 6×6 neighborhoods mark the final coordinates for the watermark reader.

FIG. 9 shows dependency of the number of blocks processed by the watermark reader and the number of frames with successfully extracted watermark on sensitivity parameter α for multiple c.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With constant improvement in smart phones (e.g., phones, tablets and other devices including digital cameras and one or more processors) and introduction of imaging checkout scanners (e.g., at grocery stores), the need for reading machine readable indicia from captured image data becomes more readily apparent; as does the need for rapidly locating machine-readable indicia within a captured image. Some forms of machine-readable indicia include digital watermarking, 1D and 2D barcodes, QR codes, data glyphs, cryptographs, etc.

In practice, some forms of machine-readable indicia, like barcodes, occupy a relatively small area of an image frame. For example, FIG. 1 shows an example frame of image data 10 including an area 12 in which machine-readable indicia is included (e.g., a 1D UPC barcode). Image data corresponding to area 12 may be captured e.g., with an image or video camera. In other cases, a barcode may be displayed on a screen or monitor display, and image data corresponding to the barcode may be optically captured. Since indicia readers may run on smartphones with limited time and processing budget for image frames, it is important to localize any machine-readable indicia versus examining every image area for the indicia. The term “localizing” (and other forms of the word) is generally used in this document to mean locating, bounding, identifying and/or estimating or predicting digital image areas that likely include machine-readable indicia. A machine-readable indicia reader (e.g., a barcode decoder or digital watermark decoder) can focus on localized areas identified as likely including machine-readable indicia, therefore saving precious computation time, as the barcode or digital watermark is decoded. For example, instead of directing a decoder at all image areas the decoder can focus initially on (or only on) those likely to include the indicia.

In this document, we describe, e.g., a novel approach to localization of machine-readable indicia in digital imagery (including video) using specialized-machine learning technology. While the following sections specifically address barcodes and digital watermarking, our approach can be applied to other types of machine readable indicia as well.

Barcode Localization

The following technology employs machine learning (e.g., feature extraction, classification, etc.) to localize barcodes and to determine an alignment angle of a localized barcode within imagery. In the following examples, machine learning is used for localization of a 1D UPC barcode within captured imagery. Of course, classifiers can be trained to localize other types of machine-readable indicia including other 1D barcodes and 2D barcodes (e.g., EAN8/EAN13, QR Codes, Datamatrix, PDF417, ITF, Code 39, Code 93, Code 128, MSI Plessey, GS1 Databar, GS1 QR Code, and Aztec, etc.)

Feature Set

One component of our barcode localization includes an edge orientation sensitive feature set. Given a grayscale image (or image patch) X of dimensions M×N (M rows, N columns, both dimensions are multiples of p∈

for simplicity), the feature set can be computed using the following steps:

-   -   1. The image X can be downsampled by a factor of p using, e.g.,         nearest-neighbor downsampling (e.g., it can be faster to process         an image with p² times less pixels) to X′. Other downsampling         technology, e.g., bilinear, bicubic, etc. can be alternatively         used.     -   2. Image X′ can be convolved * (or, alternatively, cross         correlated, dot product processed, etc.) with, e.g., 4         directional filters F^(V), F^(H), F^(D), F^(M) (vertical (V),         horizontal (H), diagonal (D), minor diagonal (M))

${F^{V} = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & 0 & 0 \\ 1 & {- 2} & 1 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}},{F^{H} = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 0 & {- 2} & 1 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \end{pmatrix}},{F^{D} = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 0 & {- 2} & 0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}},{F^{M} = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & {- 2} & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end{pmatrix}}$

to create 4 residual matrices:

Z ^(V) =X′*F ^(V) ,Z ^(H) =X′*F ^(H) ,Z ^(D) =X′*F ^(D) ,Z ^(M) =X′*F ^(M)

-   -   3. Values in the residual matrices Z^(S), S∈{V, H, M, D} are         quantized (e.g., divided or multiplied) by q, an integer,         rounded and truncated so that the values of R^(S) are in {−T,         −T+1, . . . , T}. Formally.

${R_{i,j}^{S} = {{trunc}_{T}\left( {{round}\left( \frac{Z_{i,j}^{S}}{q} \right)} \right)}},{\forall{S \in \left\{ {V,H,M,D} \right\}}},{\forall{i \in \left\{ {1,\ldots \mspace{14mu},{\frac{M}{p} - 2}} \right\}}},{\forall{j \in \left\{ {1,\ldots \mspace{14mu},{\frac{N}{p} = 2}} \right\}}},$

where i,j are indexes of the matrices Z^(S) and truncation is defined as

${{trunc}_{T}(k)} = \left\{ {\begin{matrix} T & {{{when}\mspace{14mu} k} \geq T} \\ k & {{{when} - T} < k < T} \\ {- T} & {{{when}\mspace{14mu} k} \leq {- T}} \end{matrix}.} \right.$

-   -   4. For each coordinate

${i \in \left\{ {1,\ldots \mspace{14mu},{\frac{M}{p} - 2}} \right\}},{j \in \left\{ {1,\ldots \mspace{14mu},{\frac{N}{p} = 2}} \right\}},$

 values can be computed for index matrix: I_(i,j)=1·(R_(i,j) ^(V)+T)+(2T+1)·(R_(i,j) ^(H)+T)+(2T+1)²·(R_(i,j) ^(D)+T)+(2T+1)³·(1<₁+T).

-   -   -   This index matrix now contains a unique number between 0 and             (2T+1)⁴−1 for each possible combination of quadruplet             (R_(i,j) ^(V), R_(i,j) ^(H), R_(i,j) ^(D), R_(i,j) ^(M)).             Given the nature of the following classifier, we can work             directly on the index matrix.

    -   5. Optionally, the final feature set obtained from the image X         is the histogram of index matrix I divided by the number of         elements in I. Formally,

${{f(X)} = \frac{{hist}_{0}^{{({{2T} + 1})}^{4} - 1}(I)}{\left( {\frac{M}{p} - 2} \right) \cdot \left( {\frac{N}{p} - 2} \right)}},$

and the dimensionality of f(X) is (2T+1)⁴.

All the parameters, including the directional filters, can been empirically selected based on, e.g., testing errors, computational requirements, etc. Our current preferred parameter values include:

-   -   downscaling factor, e.g., p=8; or p=round(√{square root over         (image_pixels)}/512)     -   quantization step q=16     -   truncation threshold T=2         The dimensionality of the resulting feature set is 5⁴=625. Of         course, other values and dimensionalities can be selected based,         e.g., on acceptable error tolerance, computation requirements,         etc.

Classification

We can use a probabilistic statistical classification model, e.g., logistic regression, as a classifier for machine-learning training. For a given vector w=(w₁, . . . , w₆₂₅) and feature vector x=(x₁, . . . , x₆₂₅) extracted from image X, x=f(X), the probability p(x) that the image from which the feature vector is extracted is a barcode image can be defined as:

${{p(x)} = \frac{1}{1 + e^{{- w} \cdot x^{T}}}},{{w \cdot x^{T}} = {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{625}{w_{i}x_{i}}}}$

Logistic regression can also be used as a linear binary classifier by saying that if p(x)>0.5 then the image is an image of a barcode. This condition corresponds to w x^(T)+w₀>0. The logistic function example for a one dimensional case for a given w can be seen in FIG. 2. We can say that images not containing barcode have label y=0 while barcode images are assigned a label of y=1. As a practical implementation note, and for barcode segmentation, the probability is not critical and the exponential function need not be computed. More interesting is finding the maximum probabilities, which relates, e.g., to finding the largest dot product w·x^(T).

Classifier Training

The vector w can be used for linear regression and can be determined by a training phase. In practice, for a given barcode format, training can be carried out once (or updated, if desired). The vector w determines an orientation of a decision boundary in feature space. In one implementation, training can be performed using an open source “libSVM” library downloadable at http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/˜cjlin/libsvm/. Implementation details of the LIBSVM, including solving SVM (“Support Vector Machines”) optimization problems, theoretical convergence, multiclass classification, probability estimates and parameter selection are detailed in Chang, C.-C. and Lin, C.-J. 2011, “LIBSVM: A library for support vector machines,” ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol. 2, 3, Article 27 (April 2011), 27 pages, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In another implementation, the “LibLINEAR” open source library can be used for training. LibLINEAR is described, e.g., in i) R.-E. Fan; K.-W. Chang; C.-J. Hsieh; X.-R. Wang; C.-J. Lin, “LIBLINEAR: A library for large linear classification,” Journal of Machine Learning Research 9: 1871-1874 (2008), and ii) Fan et al., “LIB LINEAR: A library for large linear classification,” Journal of Machine Learning Research 9: 1871-1874 (2008) (as last modified: Aug. 23, 2014), which are each hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Multiple Classifiers

In the current implementation of our barcode localization technology, we preferably use a plurality of trained classifiers, e.g., 17 trained classifiers, operating on the same features hence the features (e.g., index matrix) can be extracted once (and then updated, if desired). The first classifier can be trained to distinguish between barcodes in arbitrary orientations and other content (i.e., content containing no-barcodes). This first classifier can be used in a first step in barcode localization to determine high probability areas for barcode presence (or not) within a digital image. These high probability areas typically are found at or around a barcode's center.

The remaining classifiers (e.g., the remaining 16 classifiers) can be training and used to distinguish between different barcode orientations. In the 17 classifier example, the remaining 16 classifiers currently correspond to angles 11.25, 22.5, . . . , 168.75 degrees. Of course, more or less classifiers can be used, including additional or other angles other implementations. Once a barcode center is located, the remaining orientation classifiers may evaluate the center's neighborhood to decide which ones have the highest values (e.g., highest probability metrics). The highest value classifiers can be used to identify the likely origination of the bounding box or barcode. The terms “bounding box” as used in this document includes an area or region, or an outline or boarder of such an area or region, likely including a barcode.

Training

The feature sets are extracted from multiple images in both classes (first class: barcode, and second class: no-barcode) and they are given to the classifier together with the class labels. The classifier then searches for optimal vector w that minimizes the square (if using so-called L2 criterion) of distance of the wrongly classified samples from the boundary, or simply to minimize the distance itself (if using so-called L1 criterion) from the wrongly classified samples from the boundary. Therefore, the training process ‘trains’ the vector w which then can be applied to predict whether an image contains a barcode or not for previously unseen samples.

Before training, the n-sample set of feature vectors x can be normalized to mean(x_(i))=0 and std(x_(i))=1, i∈{1, . . . , n}. After the training, this normalization can be applied for each new testing sample. Alternatively, normalization can be applied to vector w to save runtime by precomputing it. Moreover, the whole model can be converted into integers, e.g., by multiplying by 32768.

Training Set for an Example Implementation

Multiple image samples were obtained from the internet and from assignee Digimarc Corp.'s own internal databases. From the obtained images, 1000 images including barcode areas and 500 images not including barcode areas were selected. Of course, we could increase or decrease the number of selected images in other implementations.

Barcode Orientation

Estimation of the barcode orientation can be structured as a multi-class problem. In one example implementation, orientation uses multiple classifiers, e.g., 16 classifiers, each trained to distinguish between one specific rotation and the rest (e.g., all other images including images with other barcode rotations+images with no barcodes). Each classifier represents one of the 16 angles—0, 11.25, 22.5, 33.75, 45, . . . , 168.75 degrees.

A training set for angle α can be created in the following manner:

-   -   Barcodes rotated by angle α Each of 1000 images including         barcodes can be rotated to be in a horizontal position. Then,         each barcode is randomly rotated by some offset, e.g., [α−5.625,         α+5.625] degrees.     -   The other class Mix of barcodes images and no-barcode images         randomly rotated by any other angle than [α−5.625, α+5.625].

Barcode Localization

For barcode localization, the selected images were used to create a training set with 5000 images in both classes (1^(st) class: barcode, and 2^(nd) class: no-barcode):

-   -   Barcode class —312 or 313 rotated barcode images were randomly         selected from each of the 16 barcode orientation databases. This         yields a total of 5000 images, each image including a barcode.     -   No-barcode class—Each of 500 no-barcode images was ten (10)         times randomly rotated between 0 and 360 degrees. This yields a         total of 5000 images, each with no barcode.

From Features to Merged Heat Map—Single Heat Map Extraction for a Given Model

An image to be analyzed, e.g., FIG. 3 (left) can be divided into multiple non-overlapping square areas S_(i,j) (sub-blocks), where i∈{1, . . . , M_(S)} and j∈{1, . . . ,N_(S)} are the coordinates within the square grid. From each area, a feature vector S_(ij)=f(S_(ij)) can be extracted.

A model m can be used with a trained vector w^((m)). For each averaged sub-block feature vector s_(i,j), we can compute the dot product V_(i,j) ^((m))=w^((m))·s_(ij) ^(T). In the resulting matrix V_(i,j) ^((m))∈

^(M) ^(S) ^(×N) ^(S) , the higher the value the more probable is the presence of the barcode (depending on the used model, e.g., barcode present or not) in the location i, j.

For a practical implementation the feature vector need not be computed because the value of V(i,j) for a given classifier can be computed directly from the index matrix.

To improve robustness while preserving the sub-block spatial resolution, we can compute the sub-block average matrix V by averaging every value in element's k×k neighborhood. For simplicity, it can be assumed that k is an odd number. Formally,

${\overset{\_}{V}}_{i,j} = {\frac{1}{k^{2}}{\sum\limits_{u = {i - \frac{k - 1}{2}}}^{u = {i + \frac{k - 1}{2}}}{\sum\limits_{v = {j - \frac{k - 1}{2}}}^{v = {j + \frac{k - 1}{2}}}{V_{u,v}.}}}}$

The visualized matrix V ^((m) ^(l) ⁾ where the model m_(l) is the barcode location model (not orientation) is shown in FIG. 3 In a preferred implementation, the size of each sub-block includes a down-sampling, e.g., 8×8 down-sampled values, and the averaging neighborhood can be a reduced set, e.g., 5×5 (k=5).

Obtaining a Merged Heat Map

First, the technique from above can be applied on the barcode location model m_(l). This will result in a heat map, a graphical example of such is shown in FIG. 3 (right). The coordinate of the maximum value of this location heat map c∈{1, . . . , M_(S)}×{1, . . . , N_(S)} is treated as a barcode center. To determine the barcode rotation, the subset of index matrix around the center with size corresponding to 5×5 sub-blocks is extracted. This area should still mostly contain the barcode and this index subset is classified using the 16 rotation models. The orientation model with highest classification value corresponding to argmax_(m)(V _(c) ^((m))) can be considered as a primary orientation (angle α), denoted m_(α).

Since an actual orientation might lie directly between two angles represented by one of the 16 models or the barcode orientation might change over the image, a secondary orientation angle can be added. The secondary orientation (angle β) is given as the larger of two neighbors of the primary orientation and it can be denoted m_(β). The weight of heat maps created from both orientation models, r_(α), can be determined by using a ratio,

r _(α) =V _(c) ^((m) ^(α) ^()/(V) _(c) ^((m) ^(α) ^()+V) _(c) ^((m) ^(β) ⁾).

The merged heat map of a barcode location heat-map and barcode orientation heat map. A constant t∈[0,1] determines the tradeoff between those two. Consequently, the values of the merged heat map H that is used to find a bounding box can be determined as:

H _(i,j)=(1−t) V _(i,j) ^((m) ^(l) ⁾ +t(r _(α) V _(i,j) ^((m) ^(α) ⁾+(1−r _(α)) V _(i,j) ^((m) ^(β) ⁾)

where i∈{1, . . . , M_(S)}, j∈{1, . . . , N_(S)}. Currently, the weight of barcode orientation heat map t is set to 0.8. Of course, this weighting can be changed to achieve desired emphasis. Also, at this point, the estimated barcode orientation θ can be given as

θ=r _(α)α+(1−r _(α))β

From Merged Heat Map to Bounding Box

This section describes a process for obtaining coordinates of four bounding box corners from the merged heat map H and the center coordinate c described above.

Step 1—Merged Heat Map Rotation Alignment

The matrix H is rotated by −θ degrees to create aligned matrix H′. The values are bilinearly interpolated. Moreover, also find rotated center coordinate c′, formally c′=rot_(−θ)(c).

Step 2—Bounding Box Initialization

Bounding box can be initialized as 1×1 neighborhood of the center c′=(c′_(row), c′_(col)) In other words,

top=floor(c′_(row)), bottom=ceil(c′_(row)), left=floor(c′_(col)), right=ceil(c′_(col))

Step 3—Bounding Box Expansion Algorithm

Evaluate, e.g., 6 possible bounding box expansions (Matlab matrix coordinate notation):

-   -   Top by 1: p_(t1)=median(H′(top−1, left:right))     -   Bottom by 1: p_(b1)=median(H′(bottom+1, left:right))     -   Left by 1: p_(l1)=median(H′(top:bottom, left−1))     -   Left by ₂: p_(l2)=median(H′(top:bottom, left−2))     -   Right by 1: p_(r1)=median(H′(top:bottom, right+1))     -   Right by 2: p_(r2)=median(H′(top:bottom, right+2))

Find the maximum from all p_(**) and if this maximum is higher than some threshold (currently 0), move the bounding box edge in the corresponding direction and by the corresponding shift (1 or 2). Then repeat the step 3. If the maximum of p_(**) is not higher than the threshold, then end the bounding box expansion. As an implementation note, the expansion to the left and right by 2 can be considered in order to jump over possible wide white spaces between barcode stripes.

Step 4—Invert the Rotation of the Bounding Box Coordinates

The resulting bounding box corner coordinates can be expressed as

-   -   Top-left: rot_(θ)(top,left)     -   Bottom-left: rot_(θ)(bottom,left)     -   Top-right: rot_(θ)(top,right)         Bottom-right: rot_(θ)(bottom.right)

Once a barcode is localized, the image area corresponding to such can be analyzed to decode numeric numbers to barcode symbols (e.g., bars and spaces).

For some of the claims we may expressly use “mean plus function” language. The functions and sometimes algorithms are apparent from the above detailed description. We expressly contemplate that the corresponding structure used to implement such function and algorithms may include, e.g., one or more configured processors, one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), one or more configured graphic processors, a programmed smartphone, a retail point of sale scanner station, and/or a touchscreen and other displays, and/or their equivalents, etc. Of course, other supporting structure/functions are found throughout this document, including from the incorporated by reference documents.

Watermark Localization

The term “steganography” generally means data hiding. One form of data hiding is digital watermarking. Digital watermarking may include a process for modifying media content to embed a machine-readable (or machine-detectable) signal or code into the media content. For the purposes of this application, the data may be modified such that the embedded code or signal is obscured to a user, yet may be detected through an automated detection process. Most commonly, digital watermarking is applied to media content such as images, audio signals, and video signals. Watermarking can be incorporated into images or graphics that are then printed, e.g., on product packaging.

Digital watermarking systems may include two primary components: an embedding component that embeds a watermark in media content, and a reading component that detects and reads an embedded watermark (referred to as a “watermark reader,” or “watermark decoder,” or simply as a “reader” or “decoder”). The embedding component (or “embedder” or “encoder”) may embed a watermark by altering data samples representing the media content in the spatial, temporal or some other domain (e.g., Fourier, Discrete Cosine or Wavelet transform domains). The reading component (or “reader” or “decoder”) may analyze target content to detect whether a watermark is present. In applications where the watermark encodes information (e.g., a message or auxiliary payload), the reader may extract this information from a detected watermark.

A watermark embedding process may convert a message, signal or payload into a watermark signal. The embedding process may then combine the watermark signal with media content and possibly other signals (e.g., a transform domain-based orientation pattern or synchronization signal) to create watermarked media content. The process of combining the watermark signal with the media content may be a linear or non-linear function. The watermark signal may be applied by modulating or altering signal samples in a spatial, temporal or transform domain.

A watermark encoder may analyze and selectively adjust media content to give it attributes that correspond to the desired message symbol or symbols to be encoded. There are many signal attributes that may encode a message symbol, such as a positive or negative polarity of signal samples or a set of samples, a given parity (odd or even), a given difference value or polarity of the difference between signal samples (e.g., a difference between selected spatial intensity values or transform coefficients), a given distance value between watermarks, a given phase or phase offset between different watermark components, a modulation of the phase of the host signal, a modulation of frequency coefficients of the host signal, a given frequency pattern, a given quantizer (e.g., in Quantization Index Modulation) etc.

The present assignee's work in steganography, data hiding and digital watermarking is reflected, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,013,021; 6,947,571; 6,912,295; 6,891,959. 6,763,123; 6,718,046; 6,614,914; 6,590,996; 6,408,082; 6,122,403 and 5,862,260, and in published specifications WO 9953428 and WO 0007356 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,449,377 and 6,345,104). Some 3rd-party work is reflected in, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,130,442; 6,208,735; 6,175,627; 5,949,885; 5,859,920. Each of the patent documents identified in this paragraph is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Of course, a great many other approaches are familiar to those skilled in the art, e.g., Avcibas, et al., “Steganalysis of Watermarking Techniques Using Images Quality Metrics”, Proceedings of SPIE, Jan. 2001, vol. 4314, pp. 523-531; Dautzenberg, “Watermarking Images,” Department of Microelectronics and Electrical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, 47 pages, Oct. 1994; Hernandez et al., “Statistical Analysis of Watermarking Schemes for Copyright Protection of Images,” Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 87, No. 7, Jul. 1999; J. Fridrich and J. Kodovský. Rich models for steganalysis of digital images, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(3):868-882, Jun. 2011; J. Kodovský, J. Fridrich, and V. Holub. Ensemble classifiers for steganalysis of digital media, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(2):432-444, 2012; and T. Pevný, P. Bas, and J. Fridrich. Steganalysis by subtractive pixel adjacency matrix, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 5(2):215-224, Ju. 2010; I. J. Cox, M. L. Miller, J. A. Bloom, J. Fridrich, and T. Kalker. Digital Watermarking and Steganography, Morgan Kaufman Publishers Inc., San Francisco, Calif., 2007; R. O. Duda, P. E. Hart, and D. H. Stork. Pattern Classification. Wiley Interscience, New York, 2nd edition, 2000; each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The artisan is presumed to be familiar with a full range of literature concerning steganography, data hiding and digital watermarking.

Digital watermarking may be used to embed an auxiliary payload into cover media (e.g., images, packaging, graphics, etc.) such that changes to the cover media to convey the digital watermarking remain invisible to humans but allows machines to reliably extract the auxiliary payload even after common signal-processing operations (e.g., noise, filtering, blurring, optical capture). This allows machines to uniquely identify objects they see or hear. Digital watermarking has been used for applications including media content protection, track and trace, etc.

Among other applications, this disclosure addresses an application where digital watermarks are included in consumer packaging (e.g., a soup labels, cereal boxes, etc.). The digital watermark can include information like UPC information, product information, distribution information, retail channel information, and/or an index to such information. Because a large surface area of a package can be watermarked, users no longer need to search for barcode at checkout, thus leading to overall speedup of the checkout process. Assignee's patent application Ser. No. 13/750,752 (published as US 2013-0223673 A1, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,367,770), filed Jan. 25, 2013 and Ser. No. 13/804,413, filed Mar. 14, 2013 (published as US 2014-0112524 A1, and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,224,184), and published PCT application No. WO/2013/033442, which are each hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discusses related use scenarios. Such retail checkout scenarios are improved when digital watermarking can be located and decoded in a timely manner as watermarked packaging is swiped or moved in front of an optical scanner (or camera). Assuming a fixed or limited time budget allocated for each image frame, limited image frame areas can be examined with a watermark reader to optimize detection time. Due to such constraints, a watermark reader can be configured as a chain of modules, each providing low missed-detection rate information and decreasing false alarms so that un-watermarked image areas can be rejected as early as possible while reducing missing of watermarked area.

One aspect of this disclosure is a pre-watermark detection analysis that quickly analyzes image data and rejects areas that most likely do not contain watermarking. This pre-watermark detection analysis can quickly analyze each area (or subsets of areas) of captured image frames and classify the areas as being watermarked or not. This analysis is preferably less computationally expensive compared to a full watermark read attempt. One technique focuses on image features constructed in the spatial domain to predict whether a transform-domain based digital watermark signal is likely included therein. Preferably, the watermark detector can recognize watermarked areas independent of rotation, scale and pose.

Image areas can be converted into statistical features, e.g., the ‘1a) spam14h,v’ (FIG. 2) in the J. Fridrich et al., “Rich models for steganalysis of digital images,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(3):868-882, Jun. 2011 (“Fridrich”), which is hereby incorporated by reference. A very small portion (including portions of section II, C) from the Fridrich paper is provided below:

C. Co-occurrence symmetrization

-   -   The individual submodels of| the rich image model will be         obtained from the 78 co-occurrence matrices computed above by         leveraging symmetries of natural images. The symmetries are in         fact quite important as they allow as to increase the         statistical robustness of the model while decreasing its         dimensionality, making it thus more compact and improving the         performance-to-dimensionality ratio. We use the sign-symmetry²         as well as the directional symmetry of images. The         symmetrization depends on ²Sign-symmetry means that taking a         negative of an image does not change its statistical properties.     -   the residual type. All ‘spam’ residuals are symmetrized         sequentially by applying the following two rules for all d=(d₁,         d₂, d₃, d₄)∈T₄:

C _(d) ←C _(d) +C _(−d),  (5)

C _(d)← C _(d)+ C

,  (6)

-   -   where         =(d₁, d₃, d₂, d₁) and −d=(−d₁, −d₂, −d₃, −d₄). After eliminating         from C (which had originally 025 elements), only 169 unique         elements remain.

For our purposes, the parameters we chose are quantization step q=3, truncation threshold T=2 and co-occurrence order D=4. An analyzed image frame is first resized, e.g., using bilinear interpolation to 25% of its original size ( 1/16 of the original pixels) in order reduce noise, speed up the feature extraction process and to model longer range dependencies. For example, when considering dependencies, image pixel values or residual values are not typically independent, e.g., two neighboring pixels have a likelihood of having the same or nearly the same value. On the other hand, if you take two pixels from opposite side of an image block, the pixels will most likely be very different. Even though the dependencies are weakening with range, there are still some. Being able to utilize (model) these longer range dependencies gives some extra information we can utilize. For example, if you can create a good model of five neighboring pixels it will be better for us than a good model of only two neighboring pixels.

To describe this feature set, we use the symbol X for an M×N grayscale image whose pixel values, x_(i,j)ϵ{0, 1, . . . , 255}, are represented using the matrix (x_(i,j)), i=1, . . . , M, j=1, . . . , N. The horizontal noise residual Z=(Z_(i,j)) is computed as z_(i,j)=x_(i,j)−x_(i,j+1). The traditional approach now continues with quantization, rounding and truncation of z_(i,j),

$\begin{matrix} {r_{i,j} = {{trunc}_{T}\left( {{round}\left( \frac{z_{i,j}}{q} \right)} \right)}} & (1) \end{matrix}$

and forming a D-dimensional co-occurrence matrix C=(c_(d1, . . . , dD)), d_(i)∈{−T, . . . , T} from D horizontal neighboring values of r_(i,j). The process is then repeated with transpose of the image X to obtain statistics from the vertically neighboring pixels. Both horizontal and vertical co-occurrences are averaged together. By exploiting symmetries in natural images we can reduce the dimensionality by adding up values in co-occurrence bins c_(d1), . . . , d_(D), C_(dD), c_(dD), . . . , d₁, c_(−d) ₁ , . . . , −d_(D), C_(−dD, . . . , −d1 to obtain the final) 169-dimensional feature set.

In order to minimize detection time, e.g., without a conversion of all image data into a transform domain, this feature set characterizes spatial domain image properties. In a case where an embedded watermark signal includes detectable transform domain features (e.g., an orientation signal detectable in the transform domain), we are using the spatial domain feature set to predict the presence of the transform domain orientation signal.

The formulation of the watermark localization problem leads to a binary classification problem to decide whether the feature vector is extracted from an image containing a readable watermark or not. Machine learning is preferably utilized to train a binary classifier on a large amount of labeled training samples so that it can well generalize and successfully classify previously unseen samples. The training establishes a boundary between watermarked and non-watermarked image blocks to enable a pre-watermark analysis module to make fast, accurate decisions.

There are many known classifiers, e.g., Linear Support Vector Machines (L-SVM), Gaussian kernel SVM (G-SVM) and Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD). Results discussed in this disclosure were obtained using FLD, which exhibited fast classification and simple implementation of Neyman-Pearson Criterion under fixed missed detection rates, but other classifiers could be used in the alternative.

A monochromatic camera with red illumination providing, e.g., 40 1024×1280-pixel frames per second, can be used to obtain image data. Of course other cameras can be used instead. A pre-watermark analysis module obtains image blocks, e.g., 384×384 pixels each, from pre-determined partially overlapping positions (e.g., 2-8 positions).

FIG. 4 shows portions of frames as captured by the monochromatic camera. While the watermark on the tomato soup label (left in FIG. 4) can be seen by some (e.g., grainy texture), it is not possible to read it because of the extreme angle and the shape of the can. The coffee cup (middle in FIG. 4), on the other hand, is not watermarked but the way the air bubbles are arranged may cause a false detection (e.g., False Positive). FIG. 4 (at right image) also shows strong AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) component cropped from an image with no object present the noise variance is 18.5 and the PSNR is 35.5 dB.

To test the pre-watermark detector module, we acquired around 30,000 images of 20 watermarked test packages (e.g., cans, boxes, bags, etc.) and 10,000 images with non-watermarked objects. In a retail setting, with packages zooming by a checkout scanner or camera, approximately one third of the images captured by the scanner/camera contain pictures of noise and dark background (e.g., no packages present during image capture), so some of these were also included in the training set. Our example training set included approximately 5,000 cover and 5,000 watermarked randomly selected blocks identified by a watermark reader (in this case, a Digimarc Discover reader, provided by Digimarc Corporation, Beaverton, Oreg., USA). Half of the cover blocks were taken from an image database with watermarked objects that were present but cannot be read and half from the image database with the non-watermarked objects.

Most of the cover blocks containing just background were removed for this test.

Two testing sets are used in this example, 10,000 blocks from checkout swipes with watermarked objects and 10,000 blocks from checkout swipes with non-watermarked objects. All images in both sets are preferably completely excluded from the training phase in order to avoid overtraining.

A goal of the disclosed detector is to distinguish between watermarked and non-watermarked blocks for a low fixed missed-detection probability PMD. The results for the thresholds set to achieve PMD 2 {0.01, 0.005, 0.001} are shown in Table 1 and the receiver operating characteristic curve of a proposed detector for block with watermarked objects is plotted in FIG. 6.

A visual (graphical) example of a watermark detection process is shown in FIG. 5 relative to a product packaging. The two right-directional hashed marked boxes highlight the regions where watermarking can be read by a reader. The overlapping hatched areas mark box (middle) is the areas pinpointed by the detector for reading by the watermark reader. The two right most rectangle areas where positively read by a watermark reader, while the left most rectangle area was not.

Our tests shows that the proposed detector is able to reduce the number of images unnecessarily processed by the watermark reader by 60-95% depending on the image content and chosen missed-detection rate. Feature extraction and classification process is efficient to be implemented in software or as part of camera hardware providing the guidance to the detector in real-time.

In some cases a watermark reader outputs a successfully decoded auxiliary payload and a strength indication of a detected synchronization signal (e.g., orientation component). Instead of training a binary classifier that outputs only “watermarked” and “not watermarked,” an alternative classifier is trained with a linear or non-linear regressor that would allow an estimate of detected orientation signal strength directly from the feature set (e.g., from the 169 features). Therefore, it would tell how well an image block is likely to be readable. The watermark reader can prioritize on the blocks with the highest “readability”—strongest estimated orientation strength.

Of course, the invention should not be limited by citing example block sizes, parameters, monochrome scanner, testing sets, etc. For example, a watermark reader can work with much smaller blocks than 384×384 and merge classifier decisions of neighboring blocks to achieve finer watermark localization.

Feature-Based Watermark Localization in Digital Capture Systems

ABSTRACT: The “Internet of Things” is an appealing concept aiming to assign digital identity to both physical and digital everyday objects. One way of achieving this goal is to embed the identity in the object itself by using digital watermarking. In the case of printed physical objects, such as consumer packages, this identity can be later read from a digital image of the digital watermarked object taken by a camera. In many cases, the object might occupy only a small portion of the image and an attempt to read the watermark payload from the whole image can lead to unnecessary processing. This section proposes statistical learning-based algorithm for localizing watermarked physical objects taken by a digital camera. The algorithm is specifically designed and tested on watermarked consumer packages read by an off-the-shelf barcode imaging scanner. By employing a simple noise sensitive features borrowed from blind image steganalysis and a linear classifier (logistic regressor), we are able to estimate probabilities of watermark presence in every part of the image significantly faster than running a watermark detector. These probabilities are used to pinpoint areas that are recommended for further processing. We compare our adaptive approach with a system designed to read watermarks from a set of fixed locations and achieve significant saving in processing time while improving overall detector robustness.

1. Introduction

Digital watermarking (also referred to as just “watermarking” and variants thereof) may include embedding auxiliary payload information into cover media such that the changes or transformations remain obscured to humans but enables machines to reliably extract the payload even after common signal-processing operations. This allows machines to uniquely identify objects they see or hear. Such form of robust data hiding has been used extensively in the last two decades for applications including media content protection, track and trace, etc. See I. J. Cox, M. L. Miller, J. A. Bloom, J. Fridrich, and T. Kalker. Digital Watermarking and Steganography. Morgan Kaufman Publishers Inc., San Francisco, Calif., 2007.

In this section, we focus on an application where watermarks are printed on consumer packages and carry information similar to one found in barcodes. Because most of the package surface can be watermarked, users no longer need to search for barcode at checkout, thus leading to overall speedup of the process. In this application, watermark has to be located and decoded as fast as possible while the package is swiped in front of the scanner. Assuming fixed time budget allocated for each frame, only limited area can be examined with algorithm designed to read the watermarks (watermark reader). Due to such constraint, watermark reading framework should be designed as a chain of modules, each providing low missed-detection rate and decreasing false alarms so that unmarked areas are rejected as early as possible while not missing any marked area.

A goal of this section is to design a module in the watermark reading framework that quickly analyzes the image and pinpoints areas that most likely contain watermark. More precise watermark detection and decoding algorithms are then used to read the payload or reject the pinpointed area. We borrow the basic tools from the field of image steganalysis (see J. Fridrich and J. Kodovsk. Rich models for steganalysis of digital images. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(3):868-882, June 2011) and, for complexity reasons, deliberately constraint ourselves to image features constructed directly in spatial domain. Although the tools are available in the literature and have been used for years, they were not studied in the context of robust detection of noisy signals as in this section.

For the purpose of this section, we use a specific instance of watermark reader (e.g., a spread-spectrum watermark detector compatible with Digimarc Discover) which we further treat as a black box. This detector uses 128×128 image block to detect presence of a watermark with high accuracy. Our goal is to develop an algorithm that will decide where in the captured image should the 128×128 block be placed. We do this by using a binary classifier (logistic regressor) learned to distinguish between image blocks with marked and unmarked content.

FIG. 7A shows a tomato soup can with unreadable watermark, FIG. 7B shows an unmarked air insulated coffee cup causing false alarms, and FIG. 7C shows detail of full resolution background noise.

To apply the trained classifier for watermark localization, an image is decomposed into much smaller square sub-blocks. Carefully chosen features are extracted from each sub-block and the trained logistic regressor is used to estimate the probability of watermark presence. The result of this process is a probability map of a given image. Finally an averaging kernel is applied on this probability map and the algorithm selects a number of locations with watermark probability exceeding a given threshold. These locations are taken as the centers of the blocks considered for further processing by a watermark reader.

Section 2 describes the experimental setup. Information about the feature set, its parameters selection and the classifier is in Section 3. The transition from binary classification problem to watermark localization is described in Section 4. Section 5 contains localization experiment results and justification for its parameter selection. Finally, brief summary can be found in Section 6.

2. Equipment and Common Setup

Images for all experiments described in this section were acquired with commercially available imaging barcode scanner with monochromatic camera and red LED illumination. The front-facing camera from this scanner provides 40 1024×1280-pixel frames per second. Each frame captures an item from two different angles using two sets of mirrors causing the image to be split in half. Strobed LED illumination and fast exposure time effectively limit motion blur allowing the scanner to provide sharp images. Obtained images have a noise component with the PSNR of 35.5 dB as shown in FIG. 1. To train and test the proposed approach, we captured tens of thousands of images simulating a checkouts process in a grocery store with various marked and unmarked objects. Some of the images contains pure image noise when no object is presented to the camera.

All results presented in this section are from 341×426-pixel images obtained by downsampling the original images by a 3×3 box filter. The downsampling factor was empirically determined to provide the best robustness for the watermark detector at hand. Moreover, the downsampling also speeds up the overall watermark extraction, and suppresses the noise component.

3. Watermark Classification Framework

This section describes all components of the watermark classification framework. Next section describes how to apply this for watermark localization.

3.1 Feature Set

Key component of the proposed algorithm is noise sensitive feature set that provides enough statistical evidence to distinguish Digimarc Discover noise-like watermark from other noisy content. Since this problem is very similar to one in digital image steganalysis, we decided to use already developed features from that field. After experimenting with multiple feature sets used in steganalysis and their parameter settings, we decided to use one of the simplest sub-models described Spatial Rich Model (SRM) paper. The authors of this paper introduce a set of 39 linear and non-linear high-pass filters to obtain rich representations of noise residuals. In order to fit into tight complexity constrains we select the simplest of SRM's feature sets—‘1a) spam14h’ from FIG. 2 in the SRM paper. The features are extracted from already downsampled image ( 1/9 of the original pixels). Using the same image scale for feature extraction and watermark detection speeds up the whole process, suppresses noise and allows to model longer range dependencies.

We use the symbol X for an M×N grayscale image whose pixel values, x_(i,j)ϵ{0, 1, . . . , 255}, are represented using the matrix X=(x_(i,j)), i=1, . . . , M, j=1, . . . , N. The horizontal noise residual Z=(z_(i,j)) is computed as z_(i,j)=x_(i,j)−x_(i,j+1). The traditional approach now continues with quantization, rounding and truncation of z_(i,j),

$\begin{matrix} {{r_{i,j} = {{trunc}_{T}\left( {{round}\left( \frac{z_{i,j}}{q} \right)} \right)}},{{{trunc}_{T}(k)} = \left\{ \begin{matrix} T & {k \geq T} \\ k & {{- T} < k < T} \\ {- T} & {k \leq {- T}} \end{matrix} \right.}} & (1) \end{matrix}$

and forming a D-dimensional co-occurrence matrix C=(c_(d1), . . . , d_(D)), d_(i)ϵ{−I, . . . , T} from D horizontal neighboring values of r_(i,j). The process is then repeated with the transpose of the image X to obtain statistics from the vertically neighboring pixels. Both horizontal and vertical co-occurrences histogram bins are added together and normalized so that all bins sum up to one. The normalization is important for classification of images with different sizes. Finally, by exploiting symmetries in natural images the dimensionality can be reduced by adding up values in co-occurrence bins c_(d1, . . . ,) d_(D), c_(dD, . . . ,) d₁, ^(c)−_(d1, . . . , −dD), ^(c) _(−dD, . . . ,) −d₁ to obtain the final 169-dimensional feature vector. More detailed explanation is available in J. Fridrich and J. Kodovský. Rich models for steganalysis of digital images. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 7(3):868-882, Jun. 2011. A feature set implementation is available at http://dde.binghamton.edu/download/feature_extractors/

3.2 Classification

The simplest formulation of the watermark detection problem leads to a binary classification problem to decide whether the feature vector is extracted from an image containing a readable watermark or not. The idea is to use a machine learning approach, i.e., train a binary classifier on large amount of labeled training samples so that it can well generalize and successfully classify previously unseen samples. There are many available out-of-the-box classifiers in the literature. We investigated Linear Support Vector Machines (L-SVM), Gaussian kernel SVM (G-SVM), logistic regression and simple Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD).² While the performance of G-SVM was indeed superior to the other classifiers, we decided to use only slightly worse logistic regression due to its fast classification and native ability to output probabilities of detection instead of binary decision.

The implementation of choice for logistic regression training is LIB LINEAR library (More information and downloads are available at http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/˜cjlin/liblinear/) with option ‘−s 0’. This implementation minimizes the L2 criterion and uses 5-fold cross-validation to find the optimal value of parameter c. Logistic regressor evaluates probability that a given feature vector f=(f₁, . . . , f₁₆₉) was obtained from a watermarked object as

$\begin{matrix} {{{p(f)} = \frac{1}{1 + e^{{- w} \cdot f^{T}}}},{{w \cdot f^{T}} = {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{169}{w_{i}f_{i}}}},} & (2) \end{matrix}$

where w=(w₁, . . . , w₁₆₉) are weights obtained from training. In our implementation, elements of the feature vectors were normalized to zero mean and unit variance before being used in logistic regressor. Feature element means and variances were determined in training phase and kept constant when testing the detector.

3.3 Training Image Sets

Two image sets were constructed to train logistic regressor to recognize features extracted from marked and unmarked image blocks. Each set consisted of 5000 images obtained from full resolution camera frame by downsampling followed by cropping random 128×128-pixel image block. Each 128×128-pixel image was evaluated by a watermark detector and labeled as marked or unmarked. Image sets were handcrafted to include representative samples of various marked and unmarked objects as well as sensor noise. Two image sets are summarized below.

TABLE 1 Search for optimal values of feature set parameters q (top), T (middle) and D (bottom) as evaluated by the probability of detection error P_(E). Lower values of P_(E) result in better feature set. Two parameters are always fixed to default values q = 4, T = 2 and D = 4. Values of parameters T and D determine the dimensionality of the feature set before symmetrization. q 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 P_(E) 0.134 0.128 0.119 0.114 0.116 0.118 0.123 0.125 T 1 (dim 25) 2 (dim 169) 3 (dim 625) P_(E) 0.135 0.114 0.116 D 3 (dim 39) 4 (dim 169) 5 (dim 819) P_(E) 0.139 0.114 0.116

-   -   Unmarked images (class 0): Image blocks that do not result in         watermark detection.     -   45% of images of watermarked objects (object too far, watermark         too weak or the perspective distortion too strong)     -   45% of images of non-watermarked objects     -   10% of images with noisy background only     -   Marked images (class 1): Images blocks with detected watermark.         -   100% of images with objects containing readable watermark of             various strength

3.4 Optimizing Feature Parameters

Feature set described in Section 3.1 has three parameters: the quantization step q, the truncation threshold T and order of the co-occurrence D. Optimal values of these parameters were determined by minimizing probability of error P_(E). Error of binary classifier based on logistic regressor P_(E) is defined as

${P_{E} = {\frac{\min}{P_{FA}}\frac{1}{Z}\left( {P_{FA} + {P_{MD}\left( P_{FA} \right)}} \right)}},$

where P_(FA) is the probability of false alarm and P_(MD) is the probability of missed detection.

Table 1 presents results of search for optimum parameter values. The authors, Vojtěch Holub and Tomas Filler, performed exhaustive search over more combinations of parameters and arrived to the same conclusion the optimal feature set parameters for this problem are q=4, T=2 and D=4 resulting in 169-dimensional feature set.

4. From Classification to Localization

Previous section described how to estimate probability of a watermark being present in a given 128×128 image block. Here we use the algorithm as a building block to estimate optimal position of an image block recommended for more detailed watermark detection. Size of the image block used in the training phase was chosen to be compatible with watermark detector. Due to feature vector normalization, learned classifier can be used with image block of a different size.

To find the most promising image block for watermark detection, we divide the downsampled image into a grid of non-overlapping 21×21-pixel sub-blocks. Each sub-block is treated as a separate image and the framework described in Section 3 is used to estimate probability of watermark presence. Algorithm 1 is used to pool the estimated probabilities and obtain the list of most promising locations with probabilities greater than parameter α ≥0. Sample result obtained by this algorithm is illustrated in FIG. 5.

Size of the sub-blocks determines statistical significance of the extracted features, number of sub-blocks used to obtain the final neighborhood in the averaging process and the resolution of final coordinates. The size of 21×21 was determined heuristically as the best trade off between these properties.

Algorithm 1 Pseudo code of sub-block pooling algorithm. Algorithm returns list of image coordinates.

while the number of coordinates in the list is smaller than c do compute neighborhood probabilities P (Ni) by averaging sub-block probabilities with 6×6 sliding window;

find the neighborhood NMAX with largest probability;

if P (N_(MAX)) > α then  add the center of N_(MAX) to the list of coordinates; else  break the loop; end  set the probabilities in all 36 sub-blocks composing N_(MAX) to zero; end

FIG. 8 shows a captured frame of a watermarked package with probability estimates calculated for each non-overlapping sub-block. The two maximums over 6×6 neighborhoods mark the final coordinates for the watermark reader.

Depending on the application at hand, the number of localized coordinates is driven by two parameters—c and α. Parameter c determines the maximum number of output coordinates per image frame, thus, bounding the complexity required to process one frame. Parameter α determines the sensitivity the higher the a is, the more confident the algorithm is about the watermark presence. For example, when c=2 and α=0.5 u to two coordinates are found and recommended for watermark detection when a watermarked object is swiped in front of the camera. No coordinate is recommended for processing when no object is present.

5. Experiments

In this section, we compare robustness of watermark detector using the above proposed approach on real-life checkouts. For this test, we captured a database of 10,000 frames simulating checkout of over 20 different watermarked packages including cans, boxes, and plastic bags. Since the cashier needs time to present an object to the scanner, most of the frames in this database contain just noise and dark background. This database was created independently of the training database and no image was used for training purposes.

We compare the proposed adaptive system with several reference implementations where blocks are statically placed on the frame. The best robustness under current setup we could achieve is when the watermark reader attempt to extract the watermark from all possible 11×15=165 locations. Due to fixed time budget (25 ms for the case of 40 FPS), this may not always be an option in a practical system. From this reason, we also compare our approach with 7 experimentally-designed location that are fixed for each frame. The number of frames with successfully decoded watermark payload is used for comparison.

FIG. 9 shows dependency between number of blocks processed by a watermark detector and number of successfully decoded frames. Several strategies with number of blocks per frame are shown for parameter α between 0 and 1. When α=0, all pooled probabilities will be larger than 0 and the localization algorithm will always select c block positions from frame. On the other hand, no location are selected when α=1.

Highlighted points in the figure corresponds to points obtained with α=0.35. Value α=0.35 is considered by the authors as an optimal value since smaller values of α do not provide significant improvement in detections while increasing complexity. Two dashed straight lines show performance of systems with fixed 7 and 165 coordinates. These static systems process 70,000, and 1,650,000 image blocks respectively.

FIG. 9 also shows that system with 7 empirically-determined coordinates can be outperformed even with up to c=2 coordinates per frame resulting in better detection with only 10,500 processed blocks. The number of watermark detections still increases significantly if a higher value of c is used.

Independent on the localization parameters, the whole process of image localization (division into the sub-blocks, feature extraction, classification, finding the best coordinates) takes around 1.5 milliseconds on 2.5 GHz laptop processor when implemented in C++ using the SSE instructions.

6. Conclusion

In this section we focused on a problem of real-time watermark extraction on computationally constrained devices. In such case, limited amount of processing time is available for watermark detector and thus the whole frame cannot be thoroughly examined by a watermark detector in a given time budget. One of the main contribution of this section is a machine learning-based framework that is able to localize areas containing watermark with good enough precision significantly faster than running a digital watermark detector. On the example of watermarked consumer packages read by an off-the-shelf barcode imaging scanner, the proposed adaptive approach improved performance over empirically designed detector examining fixed image locations. Proposed approach used approximately one fifth of the computation time. This was achieved in spite of very high noise level in the acquired images.

The key component of the framework are noise sensitive features borrowed from the field of steganalysis which are able to distinguish Digimarc Discover noise-like watermark from other noisy content. These features are classified by a trained logistic regressor that outputs the probability of watermark presence. By evaluating these probabilities from different parts of an image this framework is able to output set of coordinates that are further processed by a watermark reader.

Concluding Remarks

Having described and illustrated the principles of the technology with reference to specific implementations, it will be recognized that the technology can be implemented in many other, different, forms. To provide a comprehensive disclosure without unduly lengthening the specification, applicant hereby incorporates by reference each of the above referenced patent documents in its entirety. Such documents are incorporated in their entireties, even if cited above in connection with specific of their teachings. These documents disclose technologies and teachings that can be incorporated into the arrangements detailed herein, and into which the technologies and teachings detailed herein can be incorporated.

The methods, processes, components, apparatus and systems described above may be implemented in hardware, software or a combination of hardware and software. For example, the watermark encoding processes and embedders may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware, combinations of software, firmware and hardware, a programmable computer, electronic processing circuitry, processors, parallel processors, multi-core processors, and/or by executing software or instructions with processor(s) or circuitry. Similarly, watermark data decoding or decoders may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware, combinations of software, firmware and hardware, a programmable computer, electronic processing circuitry, and/or by executing software or instructions with a multi-purpose electronic processor, parallel processors or multi-core processors, and/or other multi-processor configurations.

The methods and processes described above (e.g., watermark detectors) also may be implemented in software programs (e.g., written in C, C++, Visual Basic, Java, Python, Tcl, Perl, Scheme, Ruby, executable binary files, etc.) stored in memory (e.g., a computer readable medium, such as an electronic, optical or magnetic storage device) and executed by an electronic processor (or electronic processing circuitry, hardware, digital circuit, etc.).

The particular combinations of elements and features in the above-detailed embodiments are exemplary only; the interchanging and substitution of these teachings with other teachings in this and the incorporated-by-reference patents are also contemplated. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: obtaining data representing optically captured imagery, the optically captured imagery depicting printed or displayed material; using one or more programmed processors: generating an edge orientation sensitive feature set from the data representing the optically captured imagery; using a first trained classifier to determine whether the feature set includes data representing a barcode; and using N additional trained classifiers to determine an orientation angle associated with the barcode, wherein N comprises an integer greater than
 3. 2. The method of claim 1 in which at least two orientation angles associated with the barcode are determined using the N additional trained classifiers.
 3. The method of claim 1 in which the N additional trained classifiers operate on a feature set centered at or around an image area associated with the barcode, in which the image area is a subset of the data representing optically captured imagery.
 4. The method of claim 1 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a binary decision of present or not.
 5. The method of claim 1 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a linear regressor.
 6. An apparatus comprising: memory for buffering blocks of image data, the image data having been captured with a camera and depicting a printed object; one or more processors programmed for: generating an edge orientation sensitive feature set from the image data; using a first trained classifier to determine whether the feature set includes data representing a barcode; and using N additional trained classifiers to determine an orientation angle associated with the barcode, wherein N comprises an integer greater than 3, and wherein the orientation angle is determined based on a probability metric.
 7. The apparatus of claim 6 in which at least two orientation angles associated with the barcode are determined using the N additional trained classifiers.
 8. The apparatus of claim 6 in which the N additional trained classifiers operate on a feature set centered at or around an image area associated with the barcode, in which the image area is a subset of the image data.
 9. The apparatus of claim 6 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a binary decision of barcode present or not.
 10. The apparatus of claim 6 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a linear regressor.
 11. An apparatus comprising: electronic memory for buffering blocks of image data, the image data having been captured with a digital camera and depicting a printed or displayed object; means for generating an edge orientation sensitive feature set from the image data; means for determining whether the feature set includes data representing a barcode, in which said means for determining utilizes a first trained classifier; and means for determining an orientation angle associated with the barcode, in which said means for determining utilizes N additional trained classifiers to, wherein N comprises an integer greater than 3, and wherein the orientation angle is determined based on a probability metric.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11 in which at least two orientation angles associated with the barcode are determined using the N additional trained classifiers.
 13. The apparatus of claim 11 in which the N additional trained classifiers operate on a feature set centered at or around an image area associated with the barcode, in which the image area is a subset of the image data.
 14. The apparatus of claim 11 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a binary decision of barcode present or not.
 15. The apparatus of claim 11 in which the first trained classifier is trained based on a linear regressor.
 16. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising means for generating a 2-dimensional heat-map including different colors corresponding to different probabilities of image areas likely including a barcode, the heat-map including a representation of at least a portion of the depicted printed or displayed object; and means for displaying the heat-map. 